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War. 11 Portraits

Curator: Oksana Barshynova

National Art Museum of Ukraine

presents the photoexhibiton

by Taras Polataiko

WAR. 11 PORTRAITS

ВІЙНА. 11 ПОРТРЕТІВ

August 28 - September 21, 2014

Curator Oksana Barshynova

Taras
Polataiko's project "War. 11 Portraits" opens the charity fundraising program LIONS DO NOT FORSAKE THOSE OF THEIR KIND,
initiated by NAMU to help wounded soldiers and museums that suffered in the
zone of ATO (Anti-Terroristic Operation).

Taras Polataiko's project "War. 11 Portraits" opens NAMU's [National Art Museum of Ukraine's] charity fundraising initiative to help wounded soldiers and museums which have suffered and been damaged within the zone of the ATO (Anti-Terrorism Operation).

For several days in early August the artist talked with patients of the surgical department of the Central Military Clinical Hospital in Kyiv who came there from the front with serious injuries. Polataiko had ?11 photo-portraits taken and recorded the stories of the people who have been in the inferno of war. They are very different people: volunteers, mobilized and contract soldiers, veterans of the Afghanistan War. They belong to different generations and went to the war zone from different regions of Ukraine. They have different attitudes to war and their experiences. For some, it rushed into their regular course of life and broke their personal, comfortable world. For others it simply is hard work that must be done as well as possible. However, all of them admit that "life is valued quite differently" now, and the belief that "we are fighting for our land" helped them to stand firm in the most difficult moments. Talking with the wounded soldiers isn't easy. Most of their answers are short and specific. But their voices and facial expressions tell much more than the most detailed interview. The exhausting conflict in eastern Ukraine has been going on for over four months now. During all this time, our attention has been focused on the developments of war, which keep changing our attitude to life, our values and ourselves. War involves everyone in its orbit. Depriving us of a sense of a peaceful life, it leaves virtually no room for concentrated everyday work. Hope for the future rests on the shoulders of the heroes - such men as are in Taras Polataiko's project. War has subjected these men to its needs, levelled their pre-war personal experience, and confronted them with a cruel necessity to live on the edge of their mental and physical ability.Their heroism has no external attributes and is devoid of pathos. It is shown only by the monumentality of the photos, the uniformity of perspective, and the emotional restraint. At the same time, the gaze of each individual's portrait directed at the camera, pulls the viewer into the field of individual experience. The artist is focusing on the inner strength as opposed to the physical losses, thus creating an intense dialogue and forcing us to look at those whom we are afraid to look in the eye."

The project provides us with an opportunity to overcome our fear of war at a time when the media is bombarding us with war images daily. It gives us a chance to make our own choice of what to do: to remain an observer or act, help, share, and support.